May 31, 2012

Debt But No Degree

Nearly 30 percent of college students who took out loans dropped out of school, up from fewer than a quarter of students a decade ago, according to a recent analysis of government data by think tank Education Sector. College dropouts are also among the most likely to default on their loans, falling behind at a rate four times that of graduates. That is raising new questions about the wisdom of decades of public policy that focused on increasing access to higher learning but paid less attention to what happens once students arrive on campus. Read more at:http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/college-dropouts-have-debt-but-no-degree/2012/05/28/gJQAnUPqwU_story.html?hpid=z4

1 Comment

As one commenter points out, the detailed statistics (not evident in this brief excerpt or in the Washington Post story) demonstrate that there is a marked disparity in dropout rate between private and public schools. Public universities show a 20% dropout rate, while for-profit entities hover around 50%. With such a disparity, generalization is (as usual) questionable.